Real Estate

Donald Trumping

You may remember the starts of the Sims 3 guide series, the Schultzes! We last left the family headed by criminal mastermind Shannon, last seen looting and pillaging Egypt. She managed to bear a child (and the amazing amount of finagling to get a decent guy for that purpose is a whole story in itself!), but her son wanted to break free from Schultz family history. As such, he moved out, across to the rich side of town (using a huge chunk of Shannon’s stolen goods), and is eager to start a more honorable life.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Samson Schultz…!

As you might discern from the tie, Samson has always wanted to be a firefighter. And would you know it: the EA Gods have now decided that NPCs aren’t the only one who get to participate in that noble endeavor! Samson moves out from the famous Schultz family home into a modern mansion of his own, and is ready to train for fighting fires.

But first, Samson wants some easy money. Sure, he’s got over $130,000 in the bank already (his mom stole a lot of stuff), but what’s the harm in having a little more?

Buying a lot outright couldn’t be easier: all real estate transactions occur over the telephone. Samson merely uses his cell phone, picks the “Check Real Estate” option, and we get this screen…

Yep, pretty blank right now. But then we click the “View Purchasable Properties” button at the top, and…

Every single lot in IGN Guide Town can be bought, even the ones that weren’t originally for sale prior to the expansion pack. This includes the library, the gym, the public pool, and others. Though Samson wants the gym, he can’t quite afford it at the moment. Still, he has some great memories of Hogan’s Deep-Fried Diner, and it’s pretty cheap anyway, so he goes ahead and purchases it.

Now on his real estate screen, he can view how much money the building has collected at any time. I can order Samson to collect the profits, but unfortunately he still has to actually go to the building to do so. That means if you own half the town, you’re going to spend all day running all over creation to get all your cash. Still, driving around and collecting the profits will earn you much more cash than any job, conventional or otherwise, once you own enough lots.

Note that if Samson simply buys into a business as a partner (rather than buying it outright), that takes place by directly interacting with the lot. However, to collect the profits, Samson will still need to use the real estate screen from his phone to actually go. The real estate screen will show you the difference between the lots you own versus the lots of which you’re merely a partner.

The easiest, most-efficient way to collect your cash if you have a lot of properties is to go into Map View. Show all your tags, and look for the little orange ones displaying a white sign with a star on it, as you can see from the screenshot. (Note that one star means you’re a partner, and three stars means you’re the owner.) From there, you can just interact with each lot and collect your money that way.